A Warrior's Love
by erisnymph
Summary: *complete* A non-sex romance *gasps* between Legoals and an assassin in his father's court. Yes, I was aiming for a Mary Sue, but someone told me I failed horribly.


TITLE: A Warrior's Love

AUTHOR: erisnymph

RATING: PG (for now, and only for references to adult material)

SUMMARY: A young woman who is employed by King Thranduil of Mirkwood, relieves the stress of her job by writing.

DISCLAIMER: Pretend Legolas never went to the Grey Havens. Oh, and he's not mine. But this is going to prove the world is coming to an end because this is just romance. If you want smut, I'll post the second half of the story. :) We're going to play the "Let's find the MA reference" with this story too. This is also a Mary Sue, heaven forbid. *puts her head in her hands* Oh my god, I've written a Mary Sue and the smut isn't needed. It's the apocalypse I tell you!

She continued to write even as she felt him enter the room.

"Not now, Legolas. I'm busy," she said without looking up at him. 

Her quill worked furiously along the thin parchment. He watched her for a few moments, taking in her flushed face and small grin without a word. His own small smile graced his flawless face. He watched her bite a knuckle on her free hand as he seated himself gracefully on her balcony railing. His gaze flitted over the forest of Mirkwood.

Legolas closed his eyes as a small breeze caressed his smooth face and rustled through his long hair. He smiled when he heard the endless scratching suddenly stop. She gazed at him thoughtfully.

"I still wonder how a virgin assassin such as yourself is able to write such erotic stories for the courtiers you so despise," he murmured, knowing her sensitive ears would hear him over the little rustling from outside. He felt, rather than see, the shrug she gave him before the scratching began again.

"I like to see them squirm," she said a few minutes later. Legolas chuckled, keeping his eyes closed. He knew she would continue when she was ready to speak again.

"They don't know who writes the stories and each wish it was them. It keeps the talking focused on the stories and not on one another."

He nodded at her answer. "And no one suspects the king's personal assassin," he added.

"Not when she's been protected from the more - ah - amorous side of life," she said in quick response. 

Legolas opened his eyes and chuckled again. He ran his hand through his unbraided hair and looked at her. She was still writing. He took an even closer look at her. She sat cross-legged on her unmade bed, dressed in pale green hose and an unbelted brown tunic that was too big for her. He recognized the tunic as one of his old ones and noticed how it hung off one of her pale shoulders. Her chocolate brown hair hung down her back in a long braid and her deep brown eyes watched her words carefully as they flowed onto the page.

The light of the sunset was beginning to fade behind the dense crop of trees outside the palace. She stopped writing when it became too dark to see her words and looked up at him. She caught his eyes on her and he smiled mock guiltily. One of her dark eyebrows arched up on her white forehead.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked.

He didn't answer and watched her silently as she stretched her strong arms and then padded barefoot to her desk. She moved a piece of paper to the side of the desk, which he had recognized as a summons. She had a new assignment for the next day, but she was unconcerned. It should have been routine enough for him to become used to it as well, but it always put him on edge when his father needed another man or elf killed for political purposes. She distracted the moodiness his thoughts were summoning by finding a piece of flint and using it to light the candles around her room. When the warm glow encompassed the bedroom, she grabbed her papers off her bed and joined Legolas on the balcony railing. His eyes followed her hands as she put pages in order, and then he brought them up to her face as she leaned back against the wall.

"Why do you do it to yourself?" he whispered on the wind.

She looked up at him slowly. He could see her mind looking for a suitable way to answer.

"It's the only way to escape what I do. Even when you ascend the throne, and that time is coming quickly I sense, I will be your assassin if I am still living. When politics are involved, someone always has to take the fall and I'm the one to make sure they do that. Writing can't complicate my job, especially if it's personal or anonymous. But more personal activities certainly could."

He never took his eyes off of her. Often he heard the same thing flow from her lips, but always in different words. It always came down to the same thing though. She didn't want complications and a lover or husband would certainly do that.

"I'm a warrior, but I do not feel the same way," he said. He always had the same response with the same words.

She just smiled at him. The conversation always went the same way, nearly every night, and had been for the past one thousand years since she had come of age and completed her training. He returned her smile and kissed the back of her hand before leaving her quarters. She watched as night continued to fall, knowing she would not sleep for a few more hours yet.

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"Have you read the latest? It was left this morning." 

"Oh my, yes. Dear Valar, up against the wall in the palace kitchens nonetheless!"

"I would love to know who the palace smut monger is."

"Well, they must have personal experience to write this. Who is the one who sleeps around the most?"

"That would be the king himself."

"Thranduil would not write such!"

She bit back a laugh by biting hard on her tongue. Inside, she was laughing hysterically at the thought of Thranduil writing such stories. The courtiers were in an uproar over her latest edition and she wondered who the cook would catch that night in the kitchens. The palace baths had needed guards after her last story.

She returned her focus to the task at hand. She had completed her summons and was appearing before the king at sunset the next day as was tradition. She carried a large bundle in her arms and the voices all stopped as she walked by. Conversation of her stories ceased and the hall grew silent. Hundreds of pairs of eyes fell on the bundle in her arms, curious as to who fell to her vicious short swords this time. King Thranduil nodded his head at her odd curtsey in hose and tunic. Legolas leaned lazily against the wall behind his father throne and he watched as she began to unwrap her burden.

He noted that she had not changed from the night before, but had merely added her belt and weaponry. On her back were two white handled long knives and at her waist were two jagged-edged daggers on either side. Similar daggers protruded from the tops of her soft boots. Only the king's assassin was allowed before him garbed as such for not even his own guards wore that many blades.

She knelt when the bundle was finally unwrapped and without removing it from the cloth, presented the head to the king. Thranduil gazed upon it for a long moment and then quickly nodded at his young killer. She rewrapped the head tightly and exited the throne room without ever saying a word. The excited whispers of the courtiers began as quickly as they had ceased.

Legolas followed her out of the throne room. She stopped at the end of the hall and waited for him to catch up to her. The two walked wordlessly into the darkening woods, the full moon granting narrow slits of light through the thick tops of the trees. 

Even to a trained warrior as himself, Legolas noted that her direction seemed rather random before she suddenly knelt down and dug a hole in the soft earth with a rock. He didn't offer her help. So caught up was she in her sense of duty that she would refuse him anyway.

The prince sat himself down on a soft pile of leaves at the base of a large redwood tree. He watched her finish burying the head of her unfortunate victim and walk over to sit beside him. He lay back down, folding his hands behind his head and stared at her back. She unstrapped the harness that criss-crossed her chest and took off the belt that sheathed her daggers. She lay the weapons to the side of the leaves and then simply unbraided her hair, letting the waves cascade down her back before she lay down next to Legolas.

"You received remarkable reviews as usual. People believe it is my father who is responsible for the writings," he said. She gave him a smile at that remark and then giggled.

"Only because they believe who writes them must have the most experience in the palace, and that would be your father, my dear prince," she replied. 

The turned their attention to the heavens, the small bit they could see through the trees. Her voice startled him after a long while because he thought she had fallen asleep.

"The moon is alive tonight. She is full at last and her children, the stars, pale next to her. Her children will never be as she is, so they settle with only complimenting her beauty."

Legolas looked at her startled. He knew she was a writer, but she had never let him see anything of hers except for the erotic stories. She hid herself in her private words, and now she was letting him hear them. She was letting him in, and he wasn't going to let her shut him out.

He rolled onto his side and propped his body up on an elbow so he could look down at her face.

"But you are not her child," he said softly. "You are brighter than even that of the sun, and you do rival the moon's fair beauty."

Her blush was so strong that he saw it in the darkness. She was caught off guard, it seemed, by her own words as much as his admission.

"Tell me again of your old friends, Legolas. Tell me again of your quest and why so few of our race remain here today," she said, trying in vain to change the subject. Legolas shook his head and used his free hand to smooth a few errant strands of hair around her face. 

"People quarrell amongst themselves when they have no common cause to unite them. For the first time, I am grateful that the evil is gone from this land."

She looked at him, not understanding his words. He took a deep breath, ready to say the words he had been thinking for a millenia.

"I missed the blood boiling in my veins as I slaughtered the foe. For a long time, I was lost without an evil to do battle against. I now thank the Valar though, because you have come to me through the small quarrells amongst the races."

Her blush never disappeared, but he saw the confusion deep set in her eyes. This was not their usual conversation and she was lost as to where it was leading.

"For over four thousand years I have been a warrior," he continued, "and for a thousand, you have been an assassin. Let us find love and life in one another for all we have known is hatred and death."

Her totally un-elf like reaction forced him to stiffle a laugh. She was gaping at him and his body shook with the strain of the silent laughter. Her brown eyes were so wide he thought they would fall from her beautiful face, and her mouth hung open as though her lower jaw had come unhinged. Her closed her mouth for her and she smiled very shyly at him, her blushing so furious now that he could feel the heat radiating from her body.

Legolas was startled to realize that his hand was still gently cupping her chin when small drops of liquid wet his fingers. Tears fell from his sweet assassin's eyes as her shock and confusion gave way to admiration and love.

"Tears?" he asked, even as his own voice choked on the emotion threatening to flood his eyes as well. She only nodded at him, her smile hidden by the fact that she was biting her lower lip savagely to stop the flow of tears.

"Those better be happy tears, my love," he whispered to her as he leaned in.

"My love," she murmured back, tasting the words on her tongue as they burned her ears and heart.

The world around them disappeared into the darkness as he closed the gap between them and kissed her.

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AN: This is a standalone, but I have written some gratuitous sex for these two. If you really want it, let me know. :)


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